Letters
by ulstergirl
Summary: Everything changes, including Nancy and Ned, when America joins the Second World War.
1. Chapter 1

**Nancy Nickerson beat me to posting a story with this same kind of premise, so if you've read hers, I think at least at the beginning that this will sound familiar. So far, it contains mild adult situations, but nothing explicit.**

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_She'll never be mine._

Ned Nickerson sat in the cafeteria at Emerson College, scraping his fork through the gravy-soaked meatloaf, his chin in his hand. The heavy monogrammed paper next to his tray was filled with slanting feminine writing.

He couldn't even remember where she was this time. Her letter made the vaguest references, but at least it wasn't _the war, the war, the war_, like everything else these days. His father had been in the Great War, and he called Ned in the fraternity every night, to tell him if the draft letter had arrived.

Ned knew it was a when. Every morning when he woke, he remembered it was a when. At seven o'clock when he walked to the study to wait for his father's nightly call, his heart pounded.

He looked down at the class ring on his hand. The heavy thick paper, lightly perfumed with her scent, caught his eye, and Ned turned to it again.

_Your friend,_

_Nancy_

He was always careful to sign his letters the same way she signed hers. More than once he'd found himself ripping up an otherwise unassuming letter after he'd slipped and signed it the way he wanted._ Love, forever and always._

_But she'll never be mine._

He usually didn't let himself think about it, not like this. But a month ago, his best friend had received the draft letter. Twenty-four hours later, he was engaged; now, a week before his scheduled departure, his longtime girlfriend was his wife, a thin gold band around her finger and a charming smile on her face. Mike had confided after one too many drinks that maybe he'd come home after, his family already swelled to three.

Ned ran the ball of his thumb over the margin of the page. As much as he liked Jan, Jan wasn't Nancy. He couldn't imagine that Nancy would ever be one to sit at home waiting for anything. As alluring as he found the thought of her standing in some red-and-white checkered kitchen in an apron, stroking a palm over a rounded belly with a glowing smile on her face, it was as unreal as the war going on half the world away, and Ned wasn't Mike. Nancy would be no hasty wartime bride, when the letter came.

Ned folded Nancy's letter and slipped it back into its envelope, back into his bag.


	2. Chapter 2

The day the letter came he borrowed his father's car and followed the river road to her.

Her roadster was in the driveway, baby-blue and sleek, and through the screened doorway he could hear the distant tinny whimsy of music through a small radio. The song was incredibly popular, played at all the school dances and socials, and he had thought to dance with Nancy to that song, someday.

He swallowed hard before he climbed the stairs and knocked on the screen door.

Her father was tall, dignified, his face softening when he saw Ned. "Hello, Mr. Drew."

"Come in, come in, Ned," and Ned walked in. The room was warm but not uncomfortable, and Mr. Drew's favorite ottoman was pulled in front of his favorite armchair, and the music was louder in here.

"How have you been, sir."

"Well," Carson replied, settling back into his armchair, gesturing for Ned to take a seat on the couch. "How are your studies going?"

Ned bit back the impulse to reply with the same generic monosyllable. "Quite challenging, sir, although it does take tremendous effort to concentrate when the weather is so nice."

Mr. Drew's eyes were gleaming with humor. "Try being in a law office. If you came to see Nancy, as I have no doubt you did, she's in the kitchen."

Ned nodded. "I brought my father's car over," he said, as calmly as he could manage. "Would you mind if Nancy and I went for a drive?"

"If you have her back for dinner, you can even join us for it."

Despite himself, a wide smile crossed Ned's face. Despite the sinking in his stomach, despite the fact that the Drews received the same kind of rations Ned's own family did. Hannah could work miracles with a sack of flour and a can of cocoa.

"Thanks, Mr. Drew."

Carson went back to his newspaper and Ned pushed open the door of the kitchen. The radio played from the corner, and Nancy and Hannah were bent over the stove. He watched her, reluctant to announce his presence; an apron was tied at the back of her neck and at the line of her waist, starched canvas over the short baby-soft curls and cornflower-blue dress, as she rolled biscuit dough flat and thin. The announcer's voice faded into another song and Nancy cried out in delight, twirling with the rolling pin still in her hand, her skirts swinging just over her knees. When her blue eyes finally caught his, her face was flushed with pleasure, her golden hair pinned up in rolls above her temples, her apron dusted with flour. Immediately she took the rolling pin into both hands and held it low at her waist, and the wide grin faded to a soft smile, but her eyes didn't leave his.

"Hi, Ned."

Hannah turned around with a sudden jerk, her palm against her bosom. "Ned! You nearly scared the life out of me. Dinner's not quite done, if..."

Ned shook his head as Hannah trailed off. "I came to see if I could steal Nancy away for a little while," he said. "If you can spare her for a drive before dinner."

He kept the light smile on his face, and Nancy only hesitated briefly before turning to Hannah. "The biscuits are almost done," she began.

"Oh, go on, girl," Hannah said, waving her off, reaching for the rolling pin. "I'll be fine."

Nancy was smiling when she lifted the apron over her head, her heels clicking on the kitchen floor as she hung it on the door of the pantry and walked over to him. "We're going for a drive?"

"It's a gorgeous day," Ned said.

"Well, we can't drive too far."

"I know," Ned said. "Especially not if Hannah has a pie in the oven..."

"Just for you, my boy," Hannah beamed over her shoulder, back at them.

They couldn't speak over the wind and she knotted a scarf under her chin and her hand rested on the seat, between them, her knees tight together. The river road was treacherous enough, without her hand between them, distracting him with the inchoate image of dying summer grass and smooth golden flesh and dancing blue eyes.

"I wanted to talk to you."

He couldn't keep his voice light, now that they were alone, and her eyes dropped down as she loosed the scarf, divided it into straight crisp squares, and slipped it into her handbag. "You don't need to butter me up, you already get to stay for dinner," she teased him softly, her eyes dancing.

He reached for her hand and the touch of her skin against his was so rare and delicate that for a moment he couldn't breathe. "Come with me," he whispered, and before she could respond he came around to her side of the car and opened her door, and with a brief flutter of lashes and a swirl of skirts over tanned shapely legs she stood before him.

Even in low heels, she couldn't take the hike through the grass from where he had pulled off the road. He took the rough heavy blanket he'd found in the trunk and spread it on the patch of brittle heat-stricken grass under an oak, and he looked away while she dropped to smooth knees and arranged her skirts over her lap. He watched the sunlight shift in dappled traces over her gleaming hair, her braced palm and splayed fingers on the blanket beside her hip, legs doubled and heels tucked beside her.

"You can take your shoes off," he said, all in a rush, and the same soft amusement touched her eyes in the hesitation before she slipped her heels off and laid them side-by-side on the ground.

"Thanks."

Her voice was low, her cheeks faintly brushed with color, and he knelt down before her. Her toes wiggled in her stockings and he almost laughed, because if he didn't laugh, right now, he was afraid of what he would say, afraid that her blue eyes would shutter and she would weave the tight lace of eloquent denial in that low melodious voice of hers, without any of it having been said, without his telling her, without her knowing.

"Nan, I."

The words he had bit back so many times were there again, and they were words that he could not legitimately speak, not until after words like betrothal and engagement and wedding were spoken. She shifted and an inch of thigh sheathed in peach silk vanished as she tugged her skirt over her knees.

"I'm going to the war."

Sometimes when he couldn't sleep, when he was feeling especially unsure, he imagined that she kept him around because he was convenient. A convenient car, a pair of strong arms, willing and able to tackle a suspect, tie a slipknot, decipher a rock formation or rappel down the side of a mountain, that he was one in a long interchangeable line of men drawn to her for those laughing eyes, that cool intelligence, the light endless dance of flirtation and desire.

The tears gleaming in her eyes when they met his proved him wrong once and for all. Her mouth opened slightly and then she was still, one strand of blond hair trembling in the wind, and her blue eyes were so wide.

"Ned, you..."

He wanted to touch her fingers again. He wanted to slide his fingertips down the alabaster curve of her cheek, wanted to rest his palm over peach silk and the warmth of skin just above her knee, to comfort her somehow, to run away from all of it with her right now, in this golden afternoon, and never leave her side again. All from the sight of tears swimming in her eyes, confirming all that her light dismissals had tried to deny.

"You can't go." At the last of it her breath caught in a soft laugh, then the edge of a sob.

"It won't be forever."

They both knew it could be a lie, but they both had to believe it. Her nod was slow and she hung her head, the deep pink of her lower lip trembling faintly.

"Nan," he said, and when she looked up at him he could trace the wet line down her cheek with his gaze, and when the impulse came he obeyed it without a second thought or breath. He pulled her into his arms and her skirt slipped up around her hips, her bare arms joined around his shoulders, and he had never been so close to her without some crisis at hand, some acceptable explanation, some plausible denial for the fact that he could feel her heart racing in her breast. His palm traced slow circles over the small of her back and she was breathing against his collarbone.

"Why," she whispered.

He produced a handkerchief and handed it to her, and she clenched it in her fist, the square of starched white cotton with his initials embroidered in black, without moving to wipe the tears from her cheeks. "Because they need me."

She shook her head. "There has to be a way," she said, and her voice was muddy with tears, her eyes bright in her flushed face. "Daddy, Daddy can do something, find a way--"

He slipped his fingers under her chin and tilted her head back until her gaze met his. He shook his head slowly. "As much as it scares me, I want-- I want to do this," he told her. "I want to feel like this is all, worth something, Nan..."

She shook her head, but she didn't say anything, and when he trailed off he slipped his arms around her waist and just held her, waiting, waiting.

He could feel the exact moment she came back to herself, the exact moment she started building that wall he hated so much. She straightened her spine and slipped away from him, the last trail of her fingertips down his arm marked in rising gooseflesh, adjusted her skirts, reached for her shoes. The breeze was still warm but the horizon had gone bright and pale with the sunset.

Once she climbed to her feet she looked almost the same, almost, and then she sniffed. "We should get back," she said softly, and he took one long last look before he gathered up the blanket and stood. He kept his hand loose at his waist, between them, drawn toward her by the unspeakable magnetism between them, and after a few steps he felt her fingers against his, tentative and cool.

The porch light was burning when he pulled up at her house, parking at the curb, then turned to her. Her fingertips were plucking at the hem of her skirt.

"When do you leave."

He leaned in toward her, his fingers moving over his seat, but he couldn't bring himself to test their newfound intimacy, not when her father could see them through the window.

"I report for my physical on Friday," he said, his voice low. "After that I go to training."

She sniffed again. He could hear her fingernails scrape against the fabric of her dress. "So we have some time."

He nodded. "We have a little time."

She leaned on his arm and her heels sounded on the walk, up the stairs, through the screen door, and they were in golden light again and she was bustling around the kitchen with Hannah, producing jugs of lemonade and tea and he was left in the living room with Nancy's father, wondering belatedly if her lips had brushed so close to his collarbone as to leave the faint trace of her lipstick there.

--

When he dreamed of Nancy she was in black velvet with her hair spilling in golden curls over her shoulders, over his cheek, and her inner thigh was bare and pale and smooth as it brushed his hip, and that cool blue-eyed gaze was clouded by desire.

"Ned, I love you."

He tightened his fist in her hair, gold silk curls between his fingers, and kissed her, and kissed her. Red-stained lips and the close scrape of teeth and black velvet over the small of her back as he pulled her to him.

"Mine, you're mine, say you're mine."

He kissed her until she could only moan her agreement, the loose bowl of warm fabric over her lap, her nails against the base of his neck, sweeping over his shoulder blades.

"Yours. I'm yours."

He jerked awake with the sheets in a tangle at his feet and her name on his lips.

--

They didn't talk about it, and most of the time he was glad. To talk about it now would be to ruin the time they had left, the dwindling days, the hours he waited until it would be appropriate for him to call again. She even drove over to Mapleton to see him one Saturday and he bought her a milkshake at the drugstore which she slipped, slowly, while he wondered what her kiss would taste like. Cream and sugar and strawberry and the very idea of her tongue, chilled with ice. He cupped his chin in his palm to hide the slight trembling.

Hannah packed a basket full of sandwiches and cold pickles, potato salad and chicken, fresh fruit and a square of chocolate for each of them. After the four of them shared the meal, Bess unwillingly followed George to the side of the river, swearing she would pick flowers instead of taking a refreshing nature walk.

Nancy had just packed up the last remains of their lunch when she felt Ned's gaze on her, and turned. "Take your shoes off," he said.

She obliged, standing on the quilt in stockings, shading her eyes to gaze at him. She was wearing her hair long and straight, the skirt of her green dress billowing and rippling at her knees.

Without warning he lifted her, effortless and smooth, and tossed her over his shoulder. With her stomach against hard muscle and her knees joined tight and bent up together, she laughed and the wind carried the sound away. "Put me down," she cried, her fists beating halfheartedly against his back, and he ran with her, as though if he could only run long enough and far enough, he wouldn't have to report for training the next morning, he wouldn't have to subsist on dreams and the occasional postcard.

"I'm going to write you every day."

The moss was cool under her feet and Nancy gazed up at him, under the faint canopy of the foliage above her head. She linked her fingertips between his, her eyes bright, her cheeks still flushed from the excitement.

"I'll write to you too, every day," she said. "I promise."

He leaned down and her eyelashes brushed her cheek, her lips parted softly. He hovered just over her, just close enough to feel the warmth radiating from her skin, and brushed his mouth over her cheekbone. She made a soft noise and her hand came up to rest at the back of his neck, over the short soft hair there, and the corner of her mouth touched the corner of his and they rested that way, only breathing, only ever breathing.

Then she took a small step back, just enough, and he could think again. But he could only think of black velvet.

"I'm going to miss you so much."

Her eyes grew wet and he blinked in surprise and wonder. "Don't say it," she whispered, and her voice was shaking slightly, and all this time, all these weeks, save for the constant tangle of their fingers they had been as before, never mentioning it, never wanting to break the spell of this.

He still couldn't believe that finally, now, this was what he had half-hoped and half-feared she felt for him, and it was all true, all too late. He reached up and brushed his fingertips just over the wet trail down her cheek, and when she reached up to cup his hand under hers he felt his heart like a painful swelled weight for just a moment, just a moment.

"I know," he said, and looked down, gathering his strength, the strength of her touch. "I know you aren't ready to get married, and I wouldn't-- I wouldn't ask you for that. Not now."

She tilted her head and gazed at him with those drowning eyes, and for a moment he thought she was going to protest, but it passed and he felt himself almost visibly deflate, just a little. She didn't know that at a single word he would drive back to Mapleton, this very minute, and ask his father for the family ring. She didn't know that.

"And this is going to sound... ridiculous." He stroked his thumb over her cheek.

"What is it," she said, finally, and her fingers laced between his to rest against her cheek, and he took a deep breath.

His cousins had done it, when he was eight years old. With a seriousness only they could muster, with purloined switchblades and cowboy hats, still covered in dust and peanut butter. Ned had never participated, but he had witnessed, fascinated. One slice through the meat of the palm, the join of a handshake, and then a bond that lasted until the next game of war or broken toy.

He sliced his right arm open, on the pale underside, over the web of blue vein, then handed her the blade, his eyes bright as they searched hers. She extended her left arm and held the point of the knife to her flesh, then shook her head, short, brisk.

"I can't," she said softly. "I can't." She handed him the knife.

"You do it."

He took her fingers between his, holding her arm steady against the faint tremble, and placed the flat of the stained blade over her skin. He drew it across, in a smooth shallow cut, and she didn't wince, didn't make a sound. As one they moved, lacing their fingers together, and she fished out one of her handkerchiefs and tied their forearms together. He could feel her pulse, feel the wet heat of her blood smeared over his arm.

"Now we're together," he said softly. "Now there's part of you in me."

She nodded and her fingers tightened between his. Then she reached up and pulled him down to her, his face just above hers, and they gazed at each other, unblinking, her eyes searching his. She closed her eyes and he could feel the warm touch of her breath through her parted lips, her fingers tight against the back of his neck, her fingers laced between his, her blood mixing with his.

He closed the distance between them and brushed his lips over hers in the softest kiss.

Her fingers were in his hair. Her fingers. Her lips were parted and when they kissed again it was harder, deeper, with the rapid sweep of his tongue over her mouth, again, again. He wrapped his left arm around her, tight against the small of her back, lost in the memory of black velvet and lips swelled red from his kiss, and pulled her up against him.

"Ned." Her pulse against his, hard.

"I want you to promise me," he said, and he forced it at all out at once, without taking a breath, without giving himself time to think. "Promise me you'll wait for me. Until I come back or until you know I never will, promise me, Nan..."

She nodded, and then her blue eyes were gazing into his. "I promise," she whispered. "I'll wait for you. Ned..."

_I love you._

He shook his head and brushed his lips over hers again, gentle and soft.

After she wrapped her arm in his handkerchief and knotted it tight and he took her handkerchief and knotted it tight around his arm and they walked back hand in hand, his thumb stroking the edge of her palm. Bess was sitting in the shade beside the river, a crown of orange flowers resting on her hair, and George had waded in up to her tanned knees.

"You two were gone for a while."

Nancy slipped her shoes back on, and smiled, very briefly. "Yeah," she said, and tugged on Ned's hand. "Race you to the water."

--

She hadn't let him say goodbye to her. When he had begun, on her father's porch, she had shaken her head and placed a thumb over his lips and silenced him. He was already so close to the edge, but she had whispered _not now, not now_, and smiled at him, lacing her fingers between his, even though he could see the shining trace against her lower lashes and the delicate euphoria that was the tremble of her lips. They had lingered until the fireflies were out and the neighborhood had gone cool and dim, standing motionless, and he didn't want to stop touching her, didn't want to break her gaze. They would never be in this moment again. Her ruined stockings and her handkerchief around his forearm and her lipstick carefully reapplied in the car before they had begun the drive home.

"We'll see each other again."

He leaned down until his forehead rested against hers, but couldn't move any closer, not with her father on the other side of the door. "We will," he agreed, his breath against her lips.

When he went back to his father's car and looked back at her she was standing in silhouette in her father's doorway, looking back at him, and it took every ounce of strength he had to start the car and drive away when all he wanted to do was run back to her.

Her picture was the first thing he packed. He picked up white cotton shirts and white cotton socks and dumped them onto his bed, and he was just sniffing when he heard a floorboard creak behind him.

His father was in the doorway.

"Son."

Ned ran his hand through his hair and managed a smile. "Hi, Dad."

"I'm proud of you."

"Thank you," Ned managed. "That means-- that means a lot to me."

He didn't dream. He woke blearily to the ring of his alarm clock and brushed his teeth and dressed as though still asleep, distracted, because he couldn't let himself think about it yet. She hadn't let him say goodbye to her. Her handkerchief in his pocket was smeared rust-red with his blood and he shouldered the duffel bag his own father had carried before he had been born.

He couldn't force down anything at breakfast and his mother had been crying. He looked down at the fork in his hand, the way the apron stretched over his mother's hip. Already in pearls and heels, her hair curled, her fingers clenched around the thin stem of a coffee cup.

"You have to eat something."

He nodded but he didn't eat, he just watched the sunlight slant through the windows and wondered when he would ever see her again.

His father walked out with him onto the front porch, the strap biting into Ned's shoulder, his thumb hooked underneath, and he turned, and he had to still be asleep. He had to.

Her roadster was parked on the curb in front of their house and she was leaning backward on her elbows against the hood, in crisp white with a short jacket in brilliant red, a slender gold chain around her neck and a slender watch at her wrist and a white cap pinned to her golden hair.

"Nancy?"

Ned's father turned just as Nancy pushed herself away from the car, in one smooth impossibly alluring movement, her heels clicking as she came up the walk. "I came to give Ned a ride," she said. "If you don't mind too much."

Ned's father glanced between the two of them. "Ned? I--"

Ned looked at his father for a long silent moment, and then James shook his head and reached for Ned's hand. "Take care of yourself," he said, his palm warm, and his eyes, his eyes, Ned was made breathless by the expression there. "And when you come back."

Ned waited a breath and then nodded. "I'll. I'll miss you and Mom."

His father hugged him, brief and hard, and then pulled back and nodded at Nancy, who still stood there at the foot of the stairs, her skirt fluttering at her knees, her blue eyes far calmer than he would ever feel again. She nodded back at him, white gloves stretching over the bone at her wrist.

"Thank you, Mr. Nickerson."

"Take care of him, Nancy."

They couldn't talk over the wind but he linked his arm around her wrist, once they were flying down the highway. She turned to him and the loose strands of her hair were fluttering at her cheeks and she smiled, but it was subdued, and if he had been driving he would have pulled over and kissed her until she was breathless.

"Ned."

He took his bag out of the trunk and rested it against the side of her car and then reached for her, pulling her up into his arms. The calm he had seen in her blue eyes was nearly gone, when her gaze searched his. She tugged her gloves off and tossed them into the seat and rested her palms against his cheeks.

"I'm going to miss you."

He couldn't speak. He could feel her breath faint against his lips and he kissed her, even though they weren't alone, and she returned it, her tongue against his, her fingertips stroking down the side of his face. When he pulled back for a breath she urged him back to her, and he kissed her again, again, until her lipstick was smeared over her cheek and her lips were swelled from the pressure of his.

"Nancy."

The first tear streaked down her cheek. "Don't tell me goodbye," she said. "Don't ever tell me goodbye. This isn't the last time we'll ever see each other."

He shook his head. "It isn't."

"You-- you made me promise," she said, and he brushed his thumb over her cheek. "Now you have to promise me that you're going to come back. We have so much left to do, Ned."

He smiled. "So many mysteries left to solve."

"Yes," she said, and kissed him again, quick and hard. "I have something for you."

He kissed her again before he let her go, and she sniffed before she reached into her handbag and pulled out a thick cream-colored envelope. It felt warm in his palm.

"Don't open it until... until you're alone."

He nodded, and kissed her again. "You know you're the only girl I've ever wanted."

She ducked her head and blushed a little, but returned the kiss he gave her just as fiercely. "Ned."

"Can you... just go see my parents sometimes," he said. "Make sure they're okay."

She nodded. "I can do that," she said. "Ned, I."

He searched her eyes, but she faltered then. He had seen her chase down hardened criminals and outwit kidnappers, but he had never seen her like this.

"Take care of yourself," she finished with a sigh. "Come back to me."

He nodded. "I always will."


	3. first

_Ned._

_I know now that I love you, and knowing it scares me to death._

_It's three o'clock in the morning and I haven't slept at all. I couldn't sleep. Whenever I lay down and close my eyes I see you, and I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe it's real, that you would leave._

_I've never felt the way I did when you kissed me. I've never felt for anyone the way I feel about you. And I didn't know until you told me that you'd be gone how much I was going to miss you. How much I do miss you, even now._

_I love you and you have to come back to me, because I can't lose this. I can't lose you. I wish I could say this all to you, but whenever I look into your eyes it's as though I can't think anymore. Maybe you understand what that feels like._

_Take care of yourself. You have to come back to me because we haven't had enough time together yet, we have so much left to do. _

_Until I see you again I will remain,_

_Forever yours,_

_Nancy_

_--_

_Nancy, my dearest, my only._

_I hate it here because you aren't here. I hate it here because I close my eyes and I can still feel your arm against mine and I can still remember what you tasted like the first time I ever kissed you and I want you here with me._

_I've loved you since the day you jumped up on the running board of your roadster and asked me what I thought I was doing, having the nerve to move your car away from a burning house, and your eyes were blazing, and you were the most beautiful girl I had ev__er seen. I couldn't believe you even bothered to talk to me, and even now, sometimes..._

_I joked about it all those times because I was afraid that you'd put your hand on my arm and smile up into my eyes and brush it off and then the next week I'd see you with someone else, and this-- this dream, that it would all be over. I think you're the b__est thing that ever happened to me._

_And that, Nancy. Those words. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. I will never ever feel this way about anyone else, anyone other than you, and it scares me. It scared me until I read what you wrote, and then it scared me because I couldn't fin__d you and say those same words back to you, and I thought it was impossible but I have never wanted so much to see you again._

_There's no way... Nancy, I will always come back to you. Always. I will do everything in my power to make it back to you. Just keep writing me, just keep thinking of me, just... never, ever let this go. Never let us go. I need to know you're there. I need __to know you're waiting for me._

_I love you. Forever and always. Until I see you again, until I can hold your hand and look into your eyes and say all this over again, I remain yours._

_Ned_

_--_

_Ned._

_I'm on the back porch as I write this, watching Hannah. She let me help her work on the victory garden until I started making fun of the cartoon vegetables on the row markers, and she laughed so hard that she almost fell over, so she's banished me. In a fe__w minutes I think I'll go inside and bring her some lemonade as an apology._

_I miss you. I miss you so much. The mark on my arm is starting to heal and I dreamed last night that somehow, somehow, that because your blood was in me and mine in you that I would be able to feel it if anything happened to you, and I would know that you'__re all right. I know it's silly._

_Your eyes look almost gold when you're kissing me._

_Tell me everything that's going on. Tell me how often you think of me, because, I can't, I can't stop thinking about you. And Ned, do you honestly think that I would ever have dropped you like that? I mean, it's true, sometimes when you weren't around I ha__d to find a guy who was nearly as handsome to escort me to a dance or help me recover a lost fortune._

_I'm joking._

_You can't see my face but I'm on the point of tears. And you were always my favorite, you have always been my favorite._

_I look ridiculous in a straw hat. I'm convinced of the fact. When you come back I'll have to show you so you can laugh at it, even though Hannah says it looks fetching on me. I think she's laughing at me when she says it. But I have to go get some lemonade__ and I fear that if I don't put the pen down right now that I will just write that I love you until my hand falls off._

_Because I do. I love you so much. Love you, love you, love you. No matter what happens. No matter what, Ned._

_When you do come back, I do want to hear it. I want you to hold my hand and look into my eyes and say it all over again, every word of it. I want to ruin another pair of stockings while I hear you say how much you love me. Never stop._

_I remain, ridiculously hatted and ever, always yours,_

_Nancy_

_--_

_Nancy, if ever a girl could manage to look fetching in a straw hat, I am sure that girl would be you._

_I will say it over again. I would get down on my knees and tell you I love you as many times as you want me to, when I come back. Even if you're in a straw hat, I'll still manage to bite back my laughter and say it all with a straight face._

_Every day here is exactly the same. The guys get care packages and their mothers and girlfriends and war brides put in pictures and cookies and socks. We wake up when the sky's still black, and my aim's getting better, although it started off better than a__ lot of guys'._

_I hope you don't think I'm terrible for doing this, but I took that picture of you, the one you gave me that I like so much, and pinned it to my headboard so I could sleep with it close to me, and the guy in the bunk above mine asked if you were my wife. F__or a minute I looked down at the mark on my arm and I didn't know what to say._

_I don't think your dream was silly at all. My dreams, Nancy-- those are, those are ridiculous. Like the straw hat and the cartoon vegetables. I think I scarred us when I pulled that knife across our arms, but it was worth it. I don't have a cheap gold week__end wedding ring on my hand, but I feel like you gave me something better that afternoon._

_Your eyes go even bluer when we kiss and it's the only time I've ever seen you with your guard down, without just the right thing in mind to say. I love you so much and I love feeling like I'm the reason. Nan, you never needed to be guarded with me. You ha__ve to know that I would do anything to never hurt you. Anything._

_Save me some lemonade. Because I wish more than anything that I was on your back porch right now, with you, and that you would never, ever cry over this again. I will be back, it'll just take a little while. The only thing I want almost as much as to come __back to you, is to be over there, finishing this. I told you this can't be for nothing. I would never forgive myself for spending this time away from you, for any other reason than to help save the world. Because I'm beginning to think that's what they're __training us to do. Save the world. Save the world so that when I come home to you, it will be with the knowledge that we will never let this happen again._

_I would write it until my hand went numb, how much I love you, but there is no way I can do it with pen and ink and paper. I'll just have to show you, and my darling, your eyes will be so blue._

_I miss you so much, and I love you even more._

_With every breath and every beat of my heart, every drop of our mingled blood, I remain,_

_ever and faithfully yours,_

_Ned_


	4. second

_Ned,_

_is it any wonder that I can feel my heart beating now, because it senses that this will find you. I touch the paper and the words you send me and I can almost feel your breath against my ear, and it will never be good enough, but it's something._

_Bess and I went up into my attic today. You've never been up there. When Mother, when Dad lost her, he put everything in boxes and it's all still there. Like she's out there somewhere and she'll come back for it one day, come back to us. Even though everything I remember about her can be put in one sentence, the smell of lavender and her hair curling over her bare shoulder and the way her ankles looked when she wore heels and the way her lips were shaped like mine, even though that is the sum of it and this is the war and we have to sacrifice and make things stretch, I can't bring myself to go through those boxes, looking for anything to give away. I can't give away any piece of her, any piece at all._

_Bess and I found her wedding dress. Bess told me I should try it on and I stood there looking down at it, and--_

_Bess is getting married._

_I think they must have sent out another round of draft letters because she came over, fidgeting with the hem of her dress and biting her lip and eventually she started talking about Tommy Grey. Maybe you remember him, the last time-- there was a party at Emerson and a bonfire and he sat on the grass a respectful foot away from her while we sang and toasted marshmallows and waited for the stars to fall. She wrote to him sometimes, and right after-- he came to River Heights while I was still in bed convincing myself that there was ever going to be a reason to get out of it again. I don't think you will ever understand how pointless it all seemed to me right after you were gone, and the way it felt like if I could only kiss you one more time that it would have just been a little better._

_I still feel that way, even now._

_Tommy asked Bess and she said yes, and while they wait for the certificate she comes to see me and she couldn't be happier. This is Bess we're talking about. This is Bess who has been at her mother's elbow every day she didn't spend getting into trouble with me. She cooks and she cleans and when we sit in a circle darning socks (and Ned, you know that I love you and I can drive on snow and manage to untie myself in ten minutes, but darning socks, it is beyond me, and George is no better) she gets hers done first. It makes sense to me that she would be the first of the three of us to get married._

_But it doesn't feel real and I think that maybe she knows that. She says her name will be Elizabeth from now on, though. Elizabeth Grey. Maybe to everyone else, maybe it will be that way on paper, in the newspaper and on the marriage certificate and the wedding announcements, but to me, she will always be Bess Marvin._

_You told me you wouldn't do that to me, that you wouldn't ask if we could be married before you left, and if you had then I don't know what I would have said. It all feels so hollow, the gold on a cheap weekend wedding ring, when what we have is blood._

_I brought my mother's wedding dress down to my room and I'm looking at it right now, and Dad went to bed hours ago, even the fireflies are asleep, because it's one o'clock in the morning and I know you said you never wanted me to do it again but I can't stop crying and I don't know why, and I wish you were here with me._

_It's impossible but I love you more with every single day and every passing hour because I know it will bring you that much closer to me._

_My hand is numb and I have to try to sleep now, because every night that you've been gone I've dreamed of you, and for the second after I wake up, when I believe it's not true... it's a little better._

_I love you. I love you so much, so much. Come back to me as soon as you can._

_With every breath I take I remain, as ever, wholly yours._

_Nancy_

_--_

_Nancy..._

_Sometimes your name is all I know anymore. Rumors are going around, that it's going to be soon, and there's a boy here, Nan, he's just a kid, he lied about his age and he can hold a gun steady against his shoulder and that seems to be enough, and he's scared out of his mind. I think on some level we all are. I stare at the bedsprings over my head while I try to sleep, and the only thing I can think is your name._

_Bess has always wanted to be married, is that what you mean? I can't imagine doing that to you, I can't imagine standing with you on my arm in front of a pastor and promising that I would be by your side forever, knowing that the next day I would ship off and it would have been a lie. Because Nancy, if I don't--_

_I can remember Tommy Grey, a little. It feels like so long ago, that bonfire, and do you know that now the only thing I remember with any clarity is the fact that your hand brushed mine when we both reached for another marshmallow. Touching you, Nan, it was like a drug to me, and I lived for the next time it might happen. Now I live for the next time I can put my arms around you, because nothing has ever felt as right as that, and that's where you belong. In my arms._

_I want to see your mother's wedding dress, and I... I bet you would look lovely in it._

_You say that every night you dream of me. What do you dream, Nancy? Do you dream of how it's going to be when I come back, or do you dream that I never left? Because I dream that there is no war, sometimes. I dream that there are no curfews or rations or guns, that there is only you with me, and your hand in mine and those blue eyes._

_It wouldn't be enough to kiss you one more time. I will never kiss you enough._

_Nan, you can't... you can't spend this time doing anything less. Do you understand me? We've been apart before, for so long, and you've always been able to find something to keep yourself occupied. Maybe even a little more than I sometimes liked, because I hate seeing you in danger. I hate the thought of your being in pain. Don't, darling, don't do this, because when we are together again this will all feel like a dream and you need to keep living. You have always looked so alive, when we're trying to puzzle through another mystery, and even if I hate your being in danger, I would hate the thought of never seeing that look on your face again more._

_Without you here I feel that my life has stopped and I'm borrowing someone else's time, to learn how to kill. I always thought I would just follow my father into his work and eventually one day... well, that day has come, and all that matters to me is coming back to you because I have waited so long, hoping that one day you would feel the same way for me as I do for you. I need to know that one of us is living, that for one of us life is going on something like normal, and you are the only one who can tell me that._

_I think that maybe the training will get easier but that being away from you never will. I love you, I love you so much, and when I come back to you and we're together again, that it would take an act of God to make me leave your side. I will come back to you, I will find my way back to you, and I want you to live for me, live for this, but most of all I want you to live, for you. If I give you nothing else I want to know that I've given you the strength to carry on, because Nancy, if I thought it would have hurt you less, even though it would have killed me inside, I would have kept from saying any of it. Even if it meant never knowing that you love me, I never, never, want you to live only to wait for me. You are worth so much more than that, to your father, to Bess and George, to everyone who knows you._

_One day it will all be a bad dream. Until that day, until the day that I see you again and my life begins again, don't let yours stop. Tell me everything. And don't cry, please don't cry, because I can't bear the thought of causing you so much pain._

_Sometimes I almost think I can hear your voice. Like you, sometimes I wake and the memory of you in my dreams is almost enough, for just a second, just a little while._

_Until I see you again, until the second I can breathe again, I remain always and ever, loving you._

_Ned_

_--_

_Ned,_

_I am trying to take to heart what you said in your last letter, and it's difficult. Everything is changing here. You're gone, Tommy is gone and Bess-- Elizabeth. Elizabeth. I have to say it over and over under my breath before I knock on her parents' door, so that I don't slip and call her Bess again, but we both know who she is. She spent twenty-four hours with her new husband and now he's gone._

_Last night we went over to see your parents. I've seen them a few times since you left. Your mother is thinner and your father, the look in his eyes, I don't know what to think. But they really seem to enjoy having us over. Your father sits with his feet up listening to the radio and reading the paper, and your mother and B-- Elizabeth, Ned I can't do it, not with you. Your mother and Bess and I sit around the fire and knit socks and make blankets, and she gives us tea, and then I go back home just tired enough to whisper a prayer over your picture and then go to sleep._

_Last night, though, we came to your parents' just as the rain started, and it lasted all evening, and you know how the river road floods. By the time we were ready to go home, it was so dark, and I think your mother misses you so much that she almost wanted us to stay so long that we would have to stay over._

_At three o'clock this morning I couldn't sleep, so I watched the rain for a while and then I found myself in your room, and if your parents had walked in I don't know what I would have done. I saw the picture of me that you keep by your bed, the pennants on the wall, the trophies, and when I laid down for just a minute on your bed, I could almost feel you there. The smell of your hair is still on the pillows._

_I must have fallen asleep, and I slept better than I have since you went away. I dreamed of you and you had come home and the war was over, and you were so handsome, and you kissed me in front of my father and I didn't care._

_I woke up when I heard your parents downstairs, but your father didn't throw me out of the house and your mother smiled at me like everything was as normal as it can be now, so they must not have known. I brought Bess a cup of coffee but she was feeling poorly this morning, and she didn't wake while I was gone. It's as though I stole a night with you, and no one knows._

_Hannah grabbed my arm the other day and asked how I had hurt myself, and I told her something about the thistles down at the river. She offered to put a bandage on it for me, to help it heal, but I told her it would be fine. Can you still see the mark on your arm? Do you still think of me, Ned? Do you still think of it?_

_Ned, no matter what, I don't regret telling you how I feel... I only wish that I had been able to do it when you were standing in front of me, not through some cowardly letter. No matter what, I'm glad that we know now. I'm glad we did have that time together, and once you're with me again, there will be no force on this earth that will take me from your side._

_Before you... I was a bridesmaid, and I was convinced that any man foolish enough to think that he could spend the rest of his life with me would never understand that I wasn't meant to sit at home pining away all day, waiting for him, and satisfied that my life was meant only as a complement to his. I thought that would be the most confining fate, and that I would do everything in my power to make sure that my father never pushed me into it. There have been boys, junior litigators in his office, who have had their eye on me, before. I knew that. Every single one of them saw me as a way to cement his future with my father._

_But you were never like that. I know that when you protest, it's because you care. I know that you are the only one who has ever understood that what I do isn't a hobby and isn't a way to kill time until I find someone suitable and make a seamless transition between my father's house and his. This is a part of me. When you share that part of my life... somehow your presence has become so necessary to me that I turn to run an idea by you, and you aren't there, and it breaks my heart._

_I never thought I would be a wife. As much as I love Bess, I would not change places with her now, and Tommy, who seems nice enough... I feel like neither of us know him as well as we should and yet I find myself keeping her busy so she doesn't stay in bed all day, so that she doesn't sit by her window and sigh and daydream. She is as I was._

_I still miss you as deeply as I did before, but I think together that Bess and I manage to find enough to do to keep from giving in to it. Weeding victory gardens and volunteering at the Red Cross downtown and darning socks. We can do so little, but at least it's something. Helping Hannah find new ways to get around our rations and make a meal that doesn't taste abominable and go untouched._

_Ned... my only. I would be stronger with you here, but I will be stronger than I ever was before when you are with me again. Sometimes I wish I could scream that I love you so loud that you would be able to hear it, and maybe, some nights, maybe you do hear it, across all this space between us. One day it will all be a bad dream. I believe that. Without your letters to get me through this, though, it would be all the worse._

_Dream of me, because I know tonight I will dream of you. And if your life is with mine now, when it begins again it will be better than you have ever imagined._

_I love you, I love you, I love you so very much, and I remain_

_Always and ever yours,_

_Nancy_

_--_

_Nancy. Nancy, I have never been this close--_

_Your letter came yesterday and your package came today, and if it had been any later, I would have missed it and I'm so glad that it came here on time._

_It's tomorrow._

_Now that I finally almost feel like I know who I am here, what I'm doing here, like I've finally built a place for myself, it's all going to be gone tomorrow morning. We'll be gone. I've heard, from some of the others, that mail will be slow, and the kind of day I have seems to depend almost entirely on whether I receive one of your letters. I'm going to be in for a terrible time, without you to keep me sane, Nancy._

_Thank you so much for the package, and thank Hannah too; I know her cookies when I taste them. Thank you for the pictures, thank you for all of it._

_When this letter finds you, I won't... _

_When I imagine you curled up in my bed at home, it looks right. I'm sure my mother planned it all, Nan. After you met her, that night over dinner she asked when you'd become her daughter in law. All I did was laugh, because I was sure that you were so far out of my league. I still think you are, but now... _

_If I could be with you right now-- I have willed, begged, with every fiber of my being that somehow it would be possible. I know what you meant, that one last kiss would make it almost better, would make me forget how this feels for just a moment. If I could just manage it. I would give everything I have just to have five more minutes with you._

_I am so afraid of this. I am so afraid of what will happen when the plane lands and I'm one in a sea of green, just another American with a gun in a line of heartsick men. I try to stop it but the thought that it's going to be nearly forever before I see you or my mother or father again, it's almost too much to bear._

_I love you, I love you, I love you, never forget that, never ever forget that. Look at the mark on your arm and remember that afternoon when we were under the trees, I came so close to telling you then, and now I wish I had._

_But I would still be here right now, the only difference... I would have been able to tell you how much you mean to me. You mean the world to me. You mean everything to me. Nancy._

_Before I met you, Nan... I was no different from anyone else. I wanted some sweet girl to keep my house and wait for me to come home to her at night. But since I met you... Nan, I had never imagined that I could meet anyone like you. You aren't some mindless girl who has only ever wanted to find someone, some guy willing to be a groom in the perfectly planned wedding and wrap the entire rest of her life around him. You have a personality. You know who you want to be and I feel that even without me or anyone else, you could find a way to be happy. You have your own ideas and dreams and I honestly feel that, when we see each other again, if you were ever to have me, that you wouldn't be-- you wouldn't be like everyone else. You would be a partner, a companion, an equal. I never have to weaken anything to help you understand. We work so, so very well together. I could be twice as good with you beside me. I could be twice the man I am with you beside me._

_But you aren't here. Even if... I can barely think it, but you would be all right. You wouldn't let your father make you unhappy by marrying you off to some jerk in a suit and tie. If you._

_I can't. I can't think about this right now._

_Tomorrow before the plane leaves, before this string between us stretches so tight, I'm going to send you something, and I hope it finds you._

_I will never, never stop loving you, and I will write every day, even if it's only to tell you how much I miss you. I am so glad that you're in my life, that you were in my life, that you aren't here to see the desperation that comes over us while we sleep, that eats us inside out. I need to make sure it never finds you. I need to do this for you, for us._

_I love you, my darling, my only, my angel, I love you. I dream of you every night, daydream about you, every second... I love you so much._

_Until I see you again, until the day I die, I will remain, always and ever yours,_

_Ned_


	5. Chapter 5

Nancy managed to keep the tears back. She managed it through opening the box, through the sudden painful stop of her heart at the words he'd written. Words like _war_ and _gone_ and _afraid_ and _heartsick_ and _die_. She managed to shove it all down tight and keep it contained until she pulled the roadster into the driveway at Ned's parents' house and scrambled out, not caring that her skirts had risen to an undignified inch above her knee, that the box he'd sent her was still clutched tight in her right hand, the corner sharp against her palm.

His mother opened the door with a sheet of ragged paper in one hand and a handkerchief tight in the other, but by then Nancy's cheeks were wet. So were Edith's.

"You got it too," Nancy gasped back another sob, and Edith nodded, and then pulled her into her arms.

Eventually the tears had to stop, and in the lull Edith made them both small strong cups of tea and they sat at the kitchen table, not quite looking at each other. Nancy had refolded the letter and put it back into its torn envelope. No eyes but hers were allowed to see those letters. She kept glancing at the sheet of paper at Edith's own elbow, each time feeling the small start of her heart at recognizing Ned's handwriting again.

"I realized," Nancy said, looking down at the fine creamy cap of foam on her tea as it grew cooler, "that I—it's so stupid," she said, and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, willing a fresh wave of tears back. "Part of me believed that he would never really go. That he'd be in training and then they would announce that it was all over, and I thought, I thought I was almost okay with him being gone, but at least he was safe. And now." She shook her head.

"I know," Edith said softly. "He's our only son. He wasn't, it wasn't supposed to happen like this."

Nancy smiled as she remembered Ned's words, Edith asking when she'd become their daughter in law. "He's special to me," Nancy whispered. "I don't know... if you ever knew that."

"I knew," Edith said quietly. "I just wasn't sure if you did."

The shadows grew longer and Edith began her preparations for dinner, but Nancy's head was pounding so with the headache borne of hard tears that she couldn't bring herself to attempt the drive home. "Go lay down, child," Edith told her, and Nancy went upstairs to where the heat moved in thick waves over her skin and his was just another in the line of closed doors.

Her heartbeat matched the pounding in her head when she very quietly turned the doorknob and very quietly stepped into his still bedroom. Just for a second. If the scent of him had faded, if the comfort she had found here had only been the drowsed hallucination of a waking dream, she wasn't sure she could take it. Slowly she sat on the edge of his bed, on the unwrinkled comforter, slipped out of her shoes,

_take off your shoes_

and pushed her bent elbow under the cool smooth weight of his pillow.

She could still smell him there.

She cried again, so hard, so very hard. She cried into the pillow, against the palm she had sandwiched between to keep the smear of her lipstick off his linens and away from his mother's curious eyes. She cried until her head pounded even harder and her lungs ached with the force of it and she felt swelled and aching and exhausted.

Distantly she heard his father come home, heard Edith's muted greeting. She curled her fingers under the collar of her dress and pulled out a heavy gold chain, sliding down to the weight of the ring which had lain just over her heart.

The gift he had promised in his last letter.

She wrapped her fingers around it and held it tight, pulling her knees up to her chest. His ring. She jealously guarded the handkerchief he had given her that first afternoon, it was still streaked a rust-red with their mingled blood, but this.

She knew what it was to wear his ring. She knew what it would mean, if his parents, her father and Hannah, Bess and George, saw it. She wasn't ready for the questions in their eyes, the assumptions of the depth of their relationship when they had barely admitted it to each other...

She sat up, her heels dangling just above the floor, and looked around the room with her eyes swimming. Every second she remained here was another that his parents could walk in and find her, but she couldn't make herself leave just yet. She tucked the ring back under her dress and let her gaze trail over the pennants and trophies.

A newsprint photo in a gold-plated frame caught her eye.

She hated publicity. If she could find any way to shift the credit to someone else, she always did. But that case had found her with Ned in front of the newspaper photographers, and before she could protest or hide, the flashbulbs had been going off. _Local detective solves baffling case._ Ned had been caught in the middle of a grin, his head bent toward hers, in grainy black and white.

_That's where you belong, by my side,_ she thought, resting her fingertip just above the glass. _Ned, please, please, come back to me._

"We'd be happy to have you stay for dinner, Nancy," his mother said, after a brisk face wash and reapplication of her lipstick and her return to his parents' company.

"If it's not too much trouble..."

James smiled. "It's never too much trouble to have you here."

Even though she called Hannah and her father and told them that she would be staying late, when Nancy pulled up at her father's house, the porch light was still burning, and through the open screen she could see the light still on in the kitchen. In the shadows of the porch she pulled out Ned's ring and held it in her clenched fist, then tucked it back under her dress and walked inside.

"Nancy?"

"Hi Dad," she called back, locking the door behind her, flipping off the porch light. "I told you that you didn't have to wait for me."

"Humor your father," he said, appearing in the doorway in his blue bathrobe, a mug in his hand. "So you had dinner with Ned's parents?"

She nodded, pulling off her gloves finger by finger, folding them and slipping them into her purse, hanging up her coat. "I made sure to call Hannah in plenty of time, though."

"Don't worry about that." Mr. Drew walked over to the couch and settled at one end, patting the cushion next to him. "Hannah said you seemed upset earlier."

Nancy sat down beside her father and folded her hands in her lap and stared at them, unable to lift her head and look at her father. "I'm okay now," she said.

"What happened?"

"Ned sent me a letter, and," she cleared her throat, willing the ache to go away. "He finished his training and... he's probably already over there right now. Tonight."

Her father slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. "Are you all right?"

She sniffed. "I don't know," she whispered.

"Nancy... I know that you and Ned were spending a lot of time together, just before he went to training... and we talked about your... relationship with him."

Nancy felt the ring pressing against her breastbone. "We did," she agreed, fighting to keep her voice even.

"Did something change?"

_I'm in love with him, he's in love with me, I swore that I'd wait for him to come back. He sent me his ring, the ring his father passed down to him, when he knew that he might never see me again, but I'm afraid to wear it in front of you and I'm afraid of __what you'll say._

She forced a smile, and turned to look at her father. "I just... I've realized that I care for him. More than any of the other escorts I've had."

"You know, Bess came over here today, and as heartbroken as you look right now, I think she almost looked worse."

"Bess came over here today?"

"While you were over at the Nickersons'. Nancy... did you..."

She lifted her hand and smoothed her hair back before she turned to him with a smile. "Yes?"

He met her gaze for a moment, then shook his head. "Never mind," he murmured, then patted her shoulder. "It'll be okay, Nancy. You know that."

She sat on the couch for a long time after he went to bed, her eyes gleaming, and when she dreamed, she dreamed of him.

--

"Is Bess home?"

Nancy remembered too late the admonishment and her best friend's new name, but Mrs. Marvin was far too distracted to correct Nancy. "Come on in, Nancy. Would you like something to drink?"

"Water's fine, ma'am."

Nancy had not been able to force herself to leave her bed until Hannah actually came upstairs, pulled back the curtains, and told her that life wasn't going to stop just because she wanted it to. They had fruit and vegetables to can, and Nancy had already promised to help.

She had begged off for an hour to go see Bess, and now, under the thin calico, she could feel the ring pressing into her skin every time she took another breath.

She hadn't yet been able to sit down and write an answering letter to Ned. Mostly because when she thought about what he had written and where he was, and why his ring was resting against her skin, she couldn't breathe, and her head was filled with the high thin keening of grief. But Bess—

_Elizabeth, Elizabeth,_ she corrected herself in the privacy of her own head,

had the ring, even if she had never had the luxury of thinking that she and Tommy had all the time in the world to be together.

She had never thought she would wake up one morning this way, with Ned so far away from her. He'd always been there, she had never questioned it, had never doubted it. He had joked that he would marry her one day, that she was the only girl he'd ever wanted, but that life, that level of commitment, was years away.

At least, she had thought it was. Until he had taken her arm in his hand and drawn the blade across her skin.

She hadn't even been able to tell Bess and George, her best friends, what had happened between them. It was beyond speech, beyond explanation, and even now, thinking of it, her cheeks burned, her skin burned where it remembered the touch of his.

"Nancy?"

Nancy startled, her lips parted, and turned to see Mrs. Marvin's tired smile.

"She's feeling a bit under the weather, dear, but she wants to see you."

Nancy read the restrained worry in Mrs. Marvin's eyes, and gave her a reassuring smile. "I won't keep her long."

Bess was in her bed, tucked in securely, her face as white as the pillowcase under her straw-blonde hair. Nancy looked around the room, the same space she and Bess and George had lay on their stomachs listening to the radio, playing with paper dolls and telling each other's futures.

"Hey," Nancy said gently, and Bess turned to her, managing a wan smile with a curve of her pale lips.

"Hey," Bess returned, shifting, then winced. "I'm sorry. I was feeling better yesterday, and I came to see you..."

"Dad told me, and I was sorry to have missed you." Nancy sat down on the side of Bess's bed, looking down at her friend. "You haven't felt well for a while now."

Bess shook her head and winced. "Mother's worried about me. I think tomorrow she'll probably call the doctor and have him come here."

"I'm so sorry."

"Will you do me a favor?" Bess asked, her voice weak and feeble, and almost immediately Nancy answered.

"Of course. I'll do anything."

Bess's hand moved against the sheet. "I've been trying to write Tommy for a few days now, but I have a dizzy spell every time I pick up a pen. Would you mind terribly writing him for me?"

Nancy wrote the letter Bess dictated, and when Mrs. Marvin came to linger in the doorway, the air of a mother hen about her, Nancy made her goodbyes and walked slowly back to her own house and the promise of Hannah on the back porch, in her apron, sorting through the vegetables, her fingers worn red and sore.

Instead, Hannah was taking a break, fanning herself on the other side of the screen, and Nancy brought her the second glass of lemonade she had poured without even asking.

"Bless you, child."

Nancy sat down in the other rocking chair, the heat close as a second skin, her fingers sliding cool down the chilled edge of the glass. She watched Hannah rock from the corner of her eye.

"I'll be upstairs for a minute."

"So I should come get you when I'm ready to start again?"

Nancy smiled faintly. "Yes. Please do."

When she reached her room, Nancy locked the door behind her, then drew the chain up and freed the ring, still warm from resting against her skin. She looked down at it for a long moment before she slipped it onto her finger, and held it tight with her fist as she went over to her desk.

This time the words came easy, and she wrote until the light began to fail, until she could smell dinner from downstairs and hear her father's footsteps on the front porch.

"Nancy!"

She threaded the chain back through the ring, tucking it under her dress before she called back.

"I'll be right there."

The last thing she saw before closing her bedroom door was the portrait she prayed over every night, standing on her bedside table, the smiling face of the man she loved.


End file.
